Mediaset Plus has been withdrawn from Sky Italia’s channel line-up due to what are described as serious breaches of contract by RTI, which is part of the Mediaset group.
The agreement signed by Sky Italia and RTI contained a number of commitments including one that Mediaset Plus would air a number of highly popular programmes such as Who wants to be a millionaire, La Corrida and Paperissima that are carried on other Mediaset channels such as MediasetExtra and La5. However, this has not been the case.
Tom Mockridge, CEO of Sky Italia, said he regretted that Mediaset had not honoured what he saw as its contractual commitments. “Failure by Mediaset to fulfill its commitments regarding the Mediaset Plus broadcast schedule has, unfortunately, forced us to terminate its distribution. It is surprising that the Mediaset group has chosen relinquish access to the more than 13m TV viewers who access Sky’s programs, after having already refused to accept our advertising campaigns on their channels, thus giving up the related advertising revenues.”
Mediaset Plus was created to offer the best of Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4 on Sky Italia.
